Pairing: Arthur/Draco.

Rating: PG-13.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. Characters owned by J.K. Rowling.

Summary: Post-OotP. Draco finds work at the Ministry. Arthur Weasley has to put up with him.

Across the tiny room, Arthur Weasley's teeth grit as he scribbles out his report; he can hear Draco's shoes above everything else. It drowns out the cool female tone of the announcements echoing from the lifts down the hall ("Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement..."), the scritch-scratch-squeal of his quill's tip, the ceaseless rustling of parchment coming from every room in the Ministry. He has Malfoy reading through a manual-sized collection of reports on Muggle firearms, and Draco's disinterest in the volume is extremely apparent, fingers flicking the pages impatiently, feet carrying him restlessly around their desks as he reads. When the first memo of the day flaps in importantly, Draco's Seeker hand plucks it reflexively from mid-air without even looking up from the manual.

"That could be mine," Arthur says coolly. The clicking pauses.

"It's not," Malfoy Junior replies, finally looking up and narrowing his pale eyes just a tic. "It flew to me."

The old Weasley fire flares up in Arthur's belly, but he stamps it down with the practised ease of a father of seven. Draco hasn't the modesty to realise a memo would not come for an intern, but Arthur doesn't point this out.

"It was between us, son," he corrects, and pins Malfoy with his best no-nonsense look, mainly reserved for Ginny's boyfriends. This is true, anyway - everything in the entire office is between them - the flickering light, the diagrams and maps, their in-and-out boxes, their coffee mugs.

"It was right over my head." Draco tosses the firearms report unceremoniously onto the desk; it skids and falls off the other side, and Arthur eyes it with a suppressed sigh.

"Pick that up," he instructs, very patiently.

"You," responds Malfoy, unfolding the purple parchment and eyeing it, then scowling and flopping into his chair boredly. "You," he repeats, and tosses the memo much like he tossed the manual. Arthur leans forward, his old chair squeaking, to pick up the memo from Draco's desk, which is thoughtfully shoved right up against his own.

Arthur Weasley knows Draco Malfoy took the internship to keep his keen eyes peeled for sensitive information, but sensitive information isn't passed through the memo system. (Arthur doesn't point this out, either, so Draco's pointed nose doesn't end up sniffing into more important corners.) This particular memo is just an ordinary alert. It's from Kingsley. Some old Muggle has turned up in a hospital with a telephone magically melded to his head, and doctors are stumped. The telephone needs to be hexed off and its jinxes removed, and several memories need to be modified. Arthur puts it on top of the in-box; they can go after lunch. Ho-hum.

He's a restless creature, this intern of Arthur's. Fidgety as a ferret. Day after day, he comes in - even on weekends, as Sensitive Information does not take weekends off, either - and props his feet up on the desk, waiting for a raid. (He's still waiting; they've not been on one yet.) While Arthur answers owls and completes paperwork, Draco twirls his wand, rearranges the plaques on the walls to suit his fancy, taps his feet loudly, and leaps up to circle their desks over and over, peering over Arthur's shoulder, and yet, trying not to get too close, which is futile, since they are crammed in the space together. Even if Arthur gives him the paperwork, he seems incapable of working quietly; some part of him is always doing something - one hand tapping his quill on his desk till the tip snaps off, wiggling his foot that he's crossed over a knee.

Arthur grew used to it after a few days and stopped telling him not to drink so much coffee. Accustomed to pulling all-nighters and working eight days' worth in seven's time, Arthur drinks his loaded with milk and four sugars, but Draco takes his that way, anyway, and it is either mug after mug of this or claustrophobia that makes him jitter so.

They look at each other over their work, and when they catch each other looking, they never balk, for it then becomes a staring contest. Arthur investigates every inch of Draco Malfoy while the boy stares brashly back. Draco has gotten tall, like his father, and he's not a bit gangly like Arthur's Ron is. His lips are nearly always clenched-looking, as if he's holding nasty things back with them. There is a slight wave to his pale hair that is, frankly, obnoxious. His shining shoes are finer and more well-kept than anything any of Arthur's children wear - even Percy, who polishes things compulsively. He nearly always glares, as if he narrowed his eyes once when he was small and his father didn't warn him they might stick that way. He snatches things; Arthur has paper cuts from Draco ripping documents away from him. He puts his feet on the desk - at least they are never dirty. His eyes roam keenly over what's left of Arthur's copper-red hair, the wear of his work robes, the slight sag of his hat. Clearly, he is memorising every wrinkle and grey hair, and informing his father about them over dinner. On occasions where Draco is leaning over Arthur's shoulder with absolutely no casual pretence, Arthur could even swear Draco is sniffing at him.

And once, just once, Draco's shoe clicked against Arthur's under their desks, and stayed there, stubbornly.

Remembering this, Arthur looks up, to find Draco's eyes lingering on him, as usual, and the boy's lips tighten.

"We-e-ell?" he drawls out. "Forget how to write?"

Arthur's quill has dribbled cobalt blue ink all down his report. Draco's mouth relaxes into a smirk. Arthur's teeth settle back into a grit, and he wills himself to remember patience. He has a whole summer of this; working eight days a week means there's plenty of time ahead yet to go off on the son of Lucius Malfoy.

"Could say the same for you," he replies acridly. "Haven't written a report since you got here, have you?"

"Well, they've got to pay you for something," his intern says. Mr Weasley calmly wipes his report clean with a charm from his trusty wand.

"Pick up the book," he then tells Draco.

Defiantly, Draco puts one foot on the corner of his desk and crosses the other over it, though he has the sense not to actually say, No, I won't.

"Pick it up," Arthur repeats, slowly and clearly. Draco crosses his arms over his chest. Left with little choice, Arthur places one ink-smudged hand on Draco's shining shoes and gives them a shove off the desk. Malfoy Junior slides forward on his seat, his eyes glittering with malice.

"Don't you lay a hand on me, Weasley Senior," he says under his breath, hands gripping the armrests of his chair.

"Follow instructions, son, or I'll lay much more than that on you," Arthur replies, and nods toward the firearms manual, resting there on the unpolished floor beside them with its spine up.

Draco's mouth pinches into an expression so unpleasant that Arthur can hardly blame Mr Malfoy for giving his son whatever he wants to keep it from showing up. If Molly were here, she would wipe it straight off. But Molly's not here, and neither is Lucius Malfoy. Slowly, as though he's never bent his back before, Draco leans over and picks up the volume by the spine with his index finger and thumb, lifting it with disgust like its very pages are all dripping with filth, and dropping it onto the desk in much the same manner. The slits of his eyes are defying Arthur to reprimand him on his treatment of the manual.

"Thank you," says Arthur instead. "That wasn't so hard, then, was it?" As this thought settles down between them, Arthur rubs his chin, leaving an inky blue streak on it, then asks another task unthinkable. "Get me some more coffee, would you?"

Still fresh from the insult of being made to pick up after himself, the boy stares at him. Arthur serenely takes up his quill, dips it in ink, and goes back to work. Realising that Arthur's request does not actually have a question mark on its end, Draco slowly stands, takes his own mug as well as Arthur's, and clicks away pink-cheeked out the door with his back once again quite rigid. Arthur smiles down at his report, then downright grins. By the end of the summer, Draco Malfoy's spine will be quite flexible indeed, and the idea of this sets Arthur off into the ocean of his thoughts again, while his quill drips. However, when Draco returns with two mugs of hot coffee (white with two sugars, each), both of them have gotten ahold of their facial features; Draco's mouth is set in its usual sneer, and Arthur's in a tight, polite smile. There's silence for a moment as Draco hands Arthur his mug and takes a sip from his own, staring at him over its rim.

Then the clicking begins again, around and around, and Draco, who smells of coffee, hangs over Arthur's shoulder while he finishes his ink-smeared report and signs it with a flourish. Weasley.

Draco steps back (click), and makes his way back around to his own desk (click, click, click, click, click).

"Don't call me son," he finally snaps, flopping back in his seat with an extremely perturbed look on his face and letting his foot come to rest on Arthur's.